114 KNOWING BIRDS THROUGH- STORIES 



ing grounds and soon began to grow scarce. Now where 

 we used to see thousands every day it is the exception if 

 we see a dozen in a year's time. It seems too bad that the 

 progress of man should always work the extermination of 

 the best of our wildlings. 



But to return to my story. As the winter wore away 

 and the snow melted off the prairie chickens began to 

 depart for their nesting grounds^ but as we had hoped, 

 all did not go. Both on our farm and that of our next 

 neighbor there were wet places where the slough grass 

 had grown five or six feet tall. This grass did not make 

 good hay, neither did it afford first class pasture. As long 

 as we had plenty of blue grass pasture for the cattle and 

 of timothy and clover for hay this grass was seldom dis- 

 turbed except to cut enough of it to top out other stacks. 

 It did not take the prairie chickens long to locate these 

 places. 



With the first bright spring mornings, even before the 

 snow drifts were all gone, I used to be awakened at day- 

 break by the crowing or rather booming of the prairie 

 cocks as they strutted about over the meadows and made 

 love to the hens. In the springtime the cock becomes as 

 proud and quarrelsome as a turkey gobbler. He struts 

 about in the early morning uttering a half crow, half 

 boom, heavy and loud out of all proportion to the size of 

 the bird. On a crisp frosty spring morning this can be 

 heard for two or three miles. I used to like to slip around 

 the fields and watch these birds strutting and crowing 

 about among the hens, attempting to win them. At such 

 times the cocks are apt to clash frequently and fight like 

 demons. 



By the middle of April we used to find nests on the 



